PODGORICA, Yugoslavia {AP}  Montenegro's parliament will investigate a news magazine's allegations linking the president to cigarette smugglers, his legal adviser said Sunday.

The assembly will appoint a special commission on Tuesday to investigate the reports at the urging of President Milo Djukanovic himself, said adviser Miodrag Vukovic.

A series of articles in the Croatian Nacional weekly in neighboring Croatia has cast a shadow on Montenegro's pro-independence leadership and Djukanovic in particular.

The charges of illicit wealth have stirred up debate in Yugoslavia, which includes Montenegro and the larger republic of Serbia.

The articles detailed alleged links among Djukanovic and other top government officials and the "Balkan tobacco mafia," which smuggles contraband cigarettes from the Balkans through Montenegro and across the Adriatic Sea. The cigarettes end up in Italy and other markets in western Europe.

Nacional alleged that Djukanovic took about 10 percent of a multimillion-dollar profit from smuggling contraband cigarettes.

"If the parliament investigation proves there is nothing to these allegations, we will again be in a position to conclude that this was only another attempt to defame our democratic reforms and leadership," Vukovic told AP.

The Croatian weekly also implicated Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic of Serbia in the smuggling ring, alleging he was close to the reputed boss.

Both Djukanovic and Djindjic, known to have maintained good personal relations despite political differences, have denied any part in the smuggling chain.

Djindjic has also suggested that authorities in Serbia investigate Nacional's allegations about him.

Italian officials have often complained to Montenegro's government about lost revenue from cigarette taxes because of smuggling over the Adriatic in speedboats.

Montenegro  and Serbia, to some extent  created economies revolving around the black market beginning in the early 1990s, when Yugoslavia came under an international trade embargo.

The underground trade helped people survive both the international sanctions and the heavy-handed rule of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic. But it also made a privileged few enormously rich from revenue linked to black market smuggling.